INSPIRE

INSPIRE

A COSY CORNER

By Cosette Awad

Letters to the Universe

There are so many things that change your life and make you aware that you are made of beautiful stardust in an immense world. So many turning points in your life that make you understand that some prayers and wishes are answered, you can call them higher powers, call them Gods, prophets, and saints, call them the universe, but whatever they are, they listen to you, and they make you realize that you are not alone in this world.

It all started when I wrote my first note to the universe and kept it under my pillow. I’ve never talked about my experience with the universe; I never actually talked about my life, to begin with. And because all I have is my words and the love this universe gave me to overcome every obstacle I faced, I can’t be but grateful and talk about what happened to me and how my life has changed. To expose myself like this took a lot of courage from me, and I owe it to my beloved editor Jasmina, who encouraged me to talk about myself instead of others this time. And I’m so glad that I’m doing this because there is nothing greater and purer than being true to myself and others.

I’ve been living in a cocoon for so long, a bubble I call my own; I was too afraid to open up to people, to love, and to share my sorrows, happiness, failures, and success with anyone. Being scared of loving again because I don’t want to lose anyone anymore. I experienced loss more than other people did; to lose a cousin, a best friend, and my mother was more than what I can endure. I have suffered alone for so long that I didn’t even know that it would’ve been much easier if someone took my hand, held me, or told me that everything will be okay, if not today, one day. The last three years have been the most difficult ones; I lost my mother on the 14th of February, day that is supposed to be the day of LOVE. While people celebrate love, I grieve my mother’s loss. It wasn’t just an ordinary death; she was killed due to a horrible accident that put her in a coma for 3 months, where she fought to stay alive, but in the end, death won.

Last year, while people were fighting the pandemic, which to this day, is still the worst nightmare of the entire world population, the person I love the most in this world was battling cancer -that he finally beat- and my best friend, the only constant person in my life, was injured in the Beirut blast. And I too was suffering from an illness. Imagine, on top of what everyone is going through, due to our situation in Lebanon, I had to deal with all of that as well. I bottled up all my pain, sadness, and fears of losing the people I love the most, as I always thought the ones, I love leave.

Because that is what happened all my life, they always leave...

For a long time, I thought that I am unloved and incapable of loving. I came from a broken home, a damaged childhood, a horrible teenage life, and in order to survive, I needed to do things on my own. I had my mother, but she, too, had been dealing with a lot in life. So, I had to be tough on my own. It took me years and years of anger to just deal with what I’ve been through. I’ve always been mad at my parents, at the world, and it was just me against the whole world. I questioned my existence many times, why I am still alive, my purpose, and why everyone I love always leaves.

My life was a roller coaster, and I have spent so many years alone trying to find what makes me happy, makes me feel safe, and makes me feel loved; it was always at the wrong places, wrong times, and with the wrong people. They were never the right ones for me. Life has been unfair to me, like to so many people, if not everyone actually, it makes us fight battles we didn’t even want to fight. But somehow, at the end of the day, we find our purpose, we meet the people we want to fight for, and those we are willing to give everything up for so they can be happy. They teach us, without even being aware of it, how to be selfless, because that’s what they are, made of love.

The last three years have been a hell of a ride and the greatest blessing. I never thought that after all that I’ve been through, life would be this fair to me, and it all started with that first note ever that I wrote to the universe. I can’t say that I’m not going through a lot right now, just like all of you because we’re still fighting a horrible pandemic that we don’t know when it will end. But like everything else in life, this too shall pass. I’m trying to say that life has put me through a lot and will give me more brutal battles to fight probably, but I refuse to lose hope because the day I started hoping is the day the universe began responding to my notes.

Now I don’t just exist, I live. I’m not alone. Life taught me that we can survive everything when we believe that we have a hand to pick us up whenever we fall when we hope, we will have great power, and when we know that there is a higher power guiding us if we just allow it to.

I will never give up on life, even though I almost did so many times.

Giving up ended the day someone I love the most told me, “I need you; we need you.” We can’t give up when we have people around us who love us and need us to be alive. We can’t give up when we have so much to offer to the world. We can never give up when we know that life will one day repay us for all the suffering. We just need to believe; all we need is to believe that this is not it... That tomorrow is going to be better; we’re going to be okay, we will.`

73 | eYs Magazine, Autumn 2021